Under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act a company could expand its business by buying a competing company.
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The Sherman Act prohibits activities that restrict interstate commerce and competition in the marketplace. It also prohibits monopolization or attempts at monopolizing any aspect of interstate trade or commerce.
It prohibited specific means of anticompetitive conduct. The Act was aimed at regulating businesses. However, its application was not limited to the commercial side of business. It's prohibition of the cartel was also interpreted to make illegal many labor union activities. This is because unions were characterized as cartels.
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act made monopolistic business practices illegal. The Act was approved on July 2, 1890.
The Sherman Antitrust Act was enacted in July 1890 and made combining of businesses to prevent competition illegal.
Describe the events of the 1902 coal strike
it destroyed some illegal trusts (monopolies), but it didn't do that much to stop the ever growing number of monpolies and trusts.
A company buying another company to eliminate it as competition
No. The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, designed to protect society from corporate entities unfairly raising prices for consumers due to unfair competition. (Examples might include Andrew Carnegie, the Steel magnate who essentially could have set steel prices at any price he so chose, as there was no real competition to undercut his prices), was being applied to labor unions as organizations which were being said to unfairly raise the cost of labor, thus financially hurting the consumers. The Clayton Act of 1914 was passed, in part, to clarify that "the labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce. Nothing contained in the antitrust laws shall be construed to forbid the existence and operations of labor [unions]... nor shall such organizations... be held or construed to be illegal combinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade." An interesting fact to be considered, a provision of the Clayton act (poor wording) gave organizations the right to seek immediate injunctions to send striking/boycotting workers back to work. Prior to Clayton, the only way an injunction could be obtained was by a District Attorney. The Clayton Act could be argued to have been more damaging to labor unions than helpful!